


'Twould Be an Unbelievable Tale if I Hadn't Lived it Myself

by salanaland



Series: Happy pirate threesome AU [5]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Death Fix, Childbirth, Depression, F/M, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Experimentation, Multi, Okay pretty damn cheesy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sadly nobody is feeling like hot sexytimes, gruesome childbirth stuff, kinda cheesy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1328281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salanaland/pseuds/salanaland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She couldn't remember her name, and she was surprised not to be dead yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "I Was Dead When I Woke Up This Morning"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous/gifts).



> Damn you, universe, for killing Mary Read.
> 
> That's right, I'm rewriting the universe.
> 
> This is (mostly) set in 1721--AC4 screwed up by killing her off in 1720 so I've restored the historical timeline of her capture/trial/prison/fever. Historically she was tried and convicted in November 1720, and buried at the end of April 1721. I've fudged a few other things though (like delaying the fall of Nassau, and having Blackbeard fake his death) but they don't affect this part much.

She was nobody, anymore. A wraith, practically: high cheekbones gone sunken, eyes flat, skin pasty and gray, lips cracking in the blistering heat. She had only a bowl and a weeping wound, a cracking and oozing scab under her rags. She spent her days staring dully at the people passing by, not even calling to them, and got few coins in her bowl as a result. At the end of the day she'd stagger barefoot to the place of food, wordlessly offer her bowl, and receive a few mouthfuls of something watery and thin that sat badly in her stomach. Sometimes she'd burn all night long, lying on old palm leaves as she sweated. Other times she'd shiver all day, huddled in her grimy tatters, freezing under the tropical sun. She dozed more and more on her corner every day, sprawled incuriously in the bustling city.

One day, she was too hungry, and the gnawing pain high in her belly kept waking her. Whimpering softly, she tried to find a more comfortable position against the wall. People were loud, and she didn't like that. Her eyes were half-open, because closing or opening them was too hard. Across the street, a blur of red was menacing another wretch like herself, and she felt an invigorating spark of fury. Couldn't they all just be left to die in peace? She attempted to stand up, but could only manage a staggering crawl through the people, carts, and animals. Even that, she needed to recover from in the putrid gutter, shit all around her. At least she could see now--several men were kicking an old woman, laughing as they spilled her few coins and broke her bowl.

It didn't matter that she herself had scratched the old woman last week for attempting to move onto her corner. That was different. This was _wrong_. Lurching into a half-standing position, she threw herself onto the nearest man, arm around his neck. At this point all she could do was fall, and she did, managing to bring the man's head to the sidewalk with a sickening crunch. The old woman skittered away as the men closed around their new target, shouting and cursing.

And then her tired eyes saw whirls of white, splashes of red, glints of silver in the sun. It was nothing to do with her, so she tried to crawl out from within the circle of violence, until a wiry arm lifted her up. "Jaysus," a woman's heavily accented voice sounded loud in her ears, and she protested weakly. "Jaysus, it's Mary. It's Mary! She's alive! Just barely! Quick, back to the bureau. Go fetch her something to eat and drink. Fruit, broth, nothing heavy. Mary, do you hear me? It's Rhona. Mary, it's Rhona. You're safe now. Oh Jaysus, Mary, they said you died."

Her lips, they were wet now, and salty. She wasn't really sure what the shorter woman was saying, just relaxed into her arms and licked the salty water raining down on her face.

Everything was a blur until she found herself in a soft bed, a cup held to her lips. She drank, expecting gruel, dirty water, or rum--she'd found half a bottle at one point, and drunk herself into a stupor. Instead, it was fresh, clean water, and she gulped it.

"Easy, Mary, you'll make yourself sick. Here, try this." It turned out to be broth, savory and delicious, but as soon as it hit her stomach it left her retching.

She found to her surprise that a tear was running down her face. She had figured that her tears were all gone after--

"Too quick, my fault, Mary. Look, here, we've got some medicine for you." At the word "medicine" she flinched away from the young man holding a smelly bottle.

"She's too feverish, Rhona, she can't eat yet," said an older female voice. "Give her more water, and a little bit of salt."

She took a few more sips of water, hesitantly, but when they brought her a cup of sea water, she cried out when it touched her lips and set them afire with pain. Someone brought her a cool, wet cloth, and pressed it on her forehead. So many people crowding around her, and she began to shake from she wasn't going to remember she wasn't she wasn't

"Mary, Mary, you're safe now. Mary, hush, Mary, please?" It was the first woman--Rhona?

The blankets were peeled back, and the older woman gasped. "It's a wonder she's alive. Look, they cut her open and stitched her back together..."

"But why?"

She waved vaguely at her lap, and then began sobbing silently, great shuddering tears sliding down her cheeks.

"Mary, love, did they do this after you had your baby?" They seemed to be talking to her, and she wasn't sure she understood what they wanted from her, but she nodded once, quickly.

"Mary had a baby?"

"Hush, Rhona, it happens. Look at her, she's been pregnant, and recently."

She whimpered and tried to curl up. She didn't want them looking at her body. It was a prison within the prison she'd spent months in. And even though she could see the stars of a night, could feel the ocean breezes, she was still within a cell of flesh and blood and pulsating, glowing life.

"After the pain, love, was there a lot of blood?"

She nodded again, hesitantly.

"What else?"

She made vague gestures in her lap.

"The baby?"

She tilted her head to the side, lolling out her tongue and closing her eyes.

"You were dying?" 

A sharp movement of one finger along the wound, and then she opened her eyes, beseeching the older woman. The noises they were making, she knew that she'd once been able to harness those noises into meaning, but her lips were parched her throat was parched and if she could talk she couldn't not talk and the silence was the only thing holding her heart together

"Someone...cut you open? Rhona, bring me the sharpest small knife you have, the strongest alcohol you have..." The woman gave more orders and soon all the Assassins were running. "Now, love, this is going to hurt, but the sickness is in you and has to come out."

She barely felt the tiny knife cutting the ragged stitches, but when the pus started to flood out of the wound, she screamed once, and passed out.

Rhona had averted her eyes, until the midwife ordered her to mop up the pus with every clean towel in her bureau. At long last, the wound was a healthier pink color, leaking a clear fluid and a small amount of blood. Rhona had to trust that the woman knew what she was doing--she was a fellow Assassin, but had taken to working as a midwife, believing she could help more people that way. And she'd helped Rhona, big time, when she was desperate after she'd discovered Hilary Flint was a Templar. The younger woman was eternally grateful, and although she didn't always understand what the midwife was doing, she trusted her implicitly, and urged every female Assassin to avail herself of the woman's services.

"Boil all those, please, Dinsmore," the midwife said, pouring the Assassins' harsh homebrew over the needle and thread and then carefully setting a few stitches in the huge incision.

"Only five stitches, Mother?" Rhona asked. It was what the midwife preferred everyone to call her, and nobody even knew her name.

"You saw what happened when it closed up. Her body needs to rid itself of the poisons."

"Will she survive?"

"I hope so. Whoever did this to her...I don't know why they would have. But see, she is not bleeding and has no pus here." She respectfully spread Mary's legs just enough to prove her point. "If she were, there might be no hope. This might be infection just where the womb used to be."

Rhona chewed on her cheek, wincing.

"Is her lover alive? The baby's father? Does she have friends, family?"

"She has...well, I don't even know what they are to her, but I'll send for them."

"When she is feeling better, perhaps we can find out what happened to her babe."


	2. Edward and the Girl Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which blood, gore, and unidentified yucky stuff play an important role.

Edward fancied that the walls of the mansion at Great Inagua were shaking. They were going to tumble down on him, Anne, and the baby who was making all the racket. And then, once Edward had been crushed, he'd be dead and then he'd get some sleep. It was a very appealing fantasy every night, a couple of hours before dawn. Of course, he didn't want any harm to come to Anne or the innocent lad. He just wanted sleep.

 The distraught baby boy with the soft tufts of fine blond hair might have been his, might have been Jack's. Poor, dead Calico Jack, a sad excuse for a pirate, but he had been Anney's unworthily beloved husband for all that. Until that one day, when she had needed him to fight by her side and he was too far gone with drink and who knows what else. Since then, since Edward and Anne had escaped the prison, she in labor and he weak from near-starvation and exposure, she'd not mentioned Jack at all. Sometimes he saw her gazing into the infant's face, as if searching for clues to his father, or else reassuring herself that he was alive, that she hadn't lost him after all.

Edward hadn't even thought about baby animals of any kind in years until he was in a rowboat with Ah Tabai and Anney and a tiny blue baby whose mouth and nose were clogged with phlegm. And then, it was like he was back in Bristol, back on the farm, holding a limp newborn lamb, and he remembered. Clearing the tiny mouth with a finger didn't help, and he didn't think he could swing a human around by the ankles--something about tiny necks and wobbly heads, not to mention being in a rowboat--so he came up with the closest thing he could, and sucked the stuff out.

It tasted perfectly horrible, like blood and shit and that one rancid whore he'd had a few years ago, where he'd actually paid her to go take a bath, but this wasn't for the pleasure of men's tongues anyway. It was part of whatever it was a woman's body did to grow a baby, Edward knew that, and he also knew that it was necessary that he get it all out of the infant's airway. He was lightheaded by the time he heard a thin cry as he was spitting a particularly foul clump of who-knows-what into the ocean.

"Edward! Oh Jaysus, Edward!" Anne's voice was the weakest he'd ever heard her sound, and he felt more than saw Ah Tabai gently ease the baby from his arms and hand him to his mother. "You saved his life, you saved my baby's life." She was babbling as she clutched the baby, who was rapidly turning pink and crying up a storm. "Oh, Edward. I could kiss ye.

He held up a hand. "Not...right now. The...blood." She'd always had impeccable hygiene before that horrific prison, and he didn't want her to think he found her disgusting--neither one of them was remotely healthy anyway after months of malnutrition. The important thing was the little pink squirming bundle, breathing and crying and _living,_ the life he had saved, the tiniest counterweight to the lives he had taken.

"You did well, Captain Kenway," Ah Tabai said quietly. "I have some experience delivering children, but I could not have saved him."

Anne was gazing at Edward, eyes shining, then she groaned loudly. "Oh rot, fuck this afterbirth!" She followed that with a long string of curses, but her eyes were dewy as she curved her hands protectively around the baby that, even to Edward's unpracticed eye, looked decidedly undersized. He picked up the oars that Ah Tabai had laid in the boat when the baby had started to come out, and rowed. His arms were straining after months of being gibbeted, but he had no idea how else to help Anney. He knew nothing about midwifery--he knew how to turn a lamb, how to save one that wasn't breathing at birth, but people? Anything that wasn't the same as lambing was far beyond his experience.

Anne had complained loudly about not being able to wash until they got to the Jackdaw, but some of the desperation had left her voice after Ah Tabai cut the cord with his blade and wrapped her and the baby in his hooded robes, stripping down to short trousers and no shirt. She had protested that she would get the robes all bloody, but with a rare smile he insisted, "Usually, they are drenched with the blood of death. Today, we trade that for the blood of new life." What could she say to that? He had then beckoned for the oars, and motioned for Edward to sit with Anne.

Exhausted and shivering, they held each other for warmth and fell into uneasy sleep, not even noticing the Jackdaw's approach until Adéwalé was practically carrying Edward onto the deck. He leaned against the railing while they handed up the baby, who didn't seem too fussed now that he'd had whatever meager amount of milk his mother could give. Adé handed Edward the baby dubiously, then helped carry Anne onto the ship.

The sailors--Edward recognized most of them--looked expectantly towards the rowboat. The awkward moment stretched into several minutes of confusion, until he realized who they were looking for. "James Kidd...is gone..." He mopped his eyes with a filthy, bloody hand.

"Fever...prison..." Anne murmured. A groan of disbelief and distress arose from the crew, surprising Edward. He'd always sort of thought they laughed at him behind his back for his relationship with someone they thought was a young man--particularly if they'd happened to overhear anything damning he happened to say in the throes of passion. But they ranged from concerned to distraught--on his behalf. A sob was threatening to escape from his throat. He realized distantly what a sight he and Anne made, wrapped loosely in Assassin robes over bloody rags, clutching each other and an unusually tiny baby. Even with his minimal experience with babies, Edward was sure this one was exceptionally small.

"This is...this is Jim," Anne said, gesturing to her son.

"What are you ladies waiting for?" Adéwalé asked the crew. "Make the captain and his family at home! You there! Warm blankets for little Jim. You, boil water for them to wash. You, bring soup, you make tea. Clean sheets on the captain's bed. Extra pillows for Miss Anne. You, you're the same height as her, let her borrow your extra trousers. Find a crate with no splinters and line it with sailcloth and something soft, for the baby to sleep in. Anyone here ever had a little baby? Or little brothers, sisters you had to take care of?" A couple of the men raised their hands. "All right, you're on baby duty. Change his pants, sing to him, whatever is needed. This baby was supposed to have three people caring for him, and one died and the other two are very ill. You two, listen to the Mentor here, and fetch him anything he needs for Miss Anne or baby Jim. Bandages, medicine, anything."

_The captain and his family_. But it wasn't complete, was it? Mary was gone...dead... Edward could feel the tears running down his face as he practically collapsed, only caught by his quartermaster. "I'm sorry, man. I know how you loved James. Here, you're almost dead on your feet. Let them take the child, he'll come to no harm."

His crew helped him out of his clothes, sponged the worst of the filth from his body, hustled him into a clean nightshirt, and bundled him into his familiar bed, where Anne and Jim joined him. He and Anne were barely able to finish their soup and tea before falling back on their pillows, curling up together, and falling deeply asleep, Anne clinging to her baby like a drowning sailor clutching a piece of flotsam.

They'd slept like that every night since, innocent as brother and sister, craving the warmth of each other, shivering in the muggy tropical nights. Often, he'd cry silently, or she'd tremble herself to sleep. Or she'd just stay awake, clinging to her son, eyes distant and pained.

It was odd sharing a bed with Anney chastely. When they got to Inagua, she had intended on sleeping in the guest house, collapsing exhausted into the dusty bed with the newborn Jim at her breast. Edward had still been too weak to handle the bedcovers of his own bed that first night, so Adé had had to tuck him in as if he were as helpless as the baby.

The next morning, he had woken to the soft sounds of the lad who might be his son suckling hungrily. Anney looked as haggard as Edward felt, tears beading on her eyelashes as she cradled her baby, propped up on all of Edward's pillows (he made a mental note to get more).

"They took hers, you know," she whispered.

"You said." 

"Her girl was healthy."

"Jim's healthy. Now."

"Thanks to you."

"Just like a lamb."

Jim grew querulous, but not much bigger, even after they'd settled in on Inagua. Anney still looked half dead. Jim cried all night for food his mother didn't have enough of. Something had to be done, so one morning Edward threw on some clothing and carefully picked his way towards the shore.

The building was locked, so he pounded on the door. Eventually, a curious head showed up in a window.

"Excuse me," he asked the young woman. "Have any of you recently had a baby?"

She glowered at him. "It'll cost ya."

"I'm not looking for sex. I need a wet nurse for...for my son." This produced a lot of commotion, and he had to raise his voice. "I'll pay three times the usual rate, I just need, my boy just needs to eat. Please?"

Within five minutes, a different young woman came out, wearing not the usual scanty clothing but a plain dress, and they started back up the hill.

Anney was not pleased to find a whore in the house holding _her_ son. But once Edward explained, and a week of Josie feeding Jim led to him doubling in size, she accepted it with ill grace.

And so they settled in, looking for all the world like a young couple with a new baby. But of course, they weren't a couple, they were a trio bereft, Mary's loss an aching chasm, and her daughter's absence a wound to their already battered hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure Tulum is a small enough community that everyone kind of has to know the basics of helping with a baby. Doesn't mean they know how to save one that's not breathing.
> 
> And seriously, poor Anne. Giving birth in a rowboat? That's gotta suck.


	3. James Kidd and the Girl Stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey it's been LESS THAN A YEAR since I updated this. Not so bad, amirite???

She had been _dying_. She knew that, sure as she knew her heart beat, sure as she felt the gentle rise and fall of her breast--sure as she knew she had a heart, and breasts, all that she'd hide to be the pirate, the man, she wanted--needed-- _ought_ to be. But everything she'd hidden had to be exposed, everything concealed revealed, near all her innermost secrets bared for all to gawk at. The shame, the absurdity, to be tried for _fornication_ , of all things! And by a man who the whores of Port Royal dreaded for how he ill-used them, no less. She'd lied her way out of that charge, but was condemned for a paltry series of petty thefts, and for scaring the living daylights out of an obnoxious fisherwoman who'd spent entirely too much time on the ship staring at her unbound breasts. 

They had grown, much to her annoyance, and were too sore and swollen to conceal as she had. Anne had cheerfully informed her that this was the work of the child she carried, which had only mitigated her distress slightly. And soon enough, everyone on the ship had known she was a woman, and not long after, her name was published in the paper: Mary Read, reward for capture, along with Anne Bonny and John Rackham. And various other pirates, names unspecified. The fellows she ate and drank and smoked and fought with these past few months, they could melt away into a coastal town if they wanted, evade capture, but she and Anne and Jack were wanted by name. 

At least she'd managed to hide some part of her--her soul, she supposed: nobody at that farce of a trial knew she was an Assassin, save her fellow prisoners--her lovers--and that too was still secret. She knew if the prison guards had known, she and Anne would be even more of a spectacle for their amusement. If the Templars knew her an Assassin, they'd kill her, child or no. And if they knew who fathered her child--well, she didn't even want to think what they might do to Edward, or to her, or to the innocent babe--probably raise it to be a Templar, if it was lucky. 

Life was an unending--and too quickly ended--string of ironies. Being a girl would have made her a destitute child; being a woman would have prevented her from becoming a soldier and a pirate; carrying a child had saved her life; bearing that child was killing her. The world's best joke on her, the pink _thing_ that had been torn out of her, had hung between her legs, the very core of womanhood that she'd taken such pains to conceal. It mocked the artifice by which she'd given such pleasure, mocked the deceit of her whole life: here, now, James Kidd finally has something _real_ in his trousers! Not the usual, not the _proper_ bit, he's dying from childbirth anyway-- 

She wasn't altogether sure she wasn't still in that cell, dreaming of rescue as her life ebbed away in a trickle of blood and a torrent of fever. 

After hours of labor, all alone but for her dear Anne's encouragement from the next cell, she had fallen on her hands and knees, and _pushed_ , strained muscles she didn't know existed, (but of course every other woman in the world did, used them every year, some of them, it was only Mary so ignorant of womanhood) and there was something small and bloody and loud tangled in her filthy, tattered, despised skirt. 

She had so hoped to birth a son, never dragged down by anything that had held back his mother, but brave and reckless like his father. But when she unwrapped the slimy bundle of rags, when she picked it up and it was covered in blood and dirt and moldy straw, and it was a _girl_ of all the blasted things, squalling and red even under the blood, and she brushed back the sticky dark fine hair with her grimy hands, and the tiny fingers wrapped around hers, and the brilliant blue eyes half opened mid-cry, well, then Mary Read knew her daughter was simply perfect. 

"Anne..." she breathed. 

"Mary? Mary! What is it, is that the baby? Is it all right? It should be red, and I hear it crying, that's good. Mary, Mary, love, it's almost over, you're doing great. You're going to feel more pain--" Anne was pacing back and forth with worry, she could hear the other woman's fear for her. 

"Her name is Anne," she said, a little louder, gently flicking some straw off her daughter's face. "Anne Read." 

"Oh Jaysus, Mary, oh God, are ye all right? Ye should--you should have to push again, soon. The afterbirth. Oh Mary, Mary." Anne was babbling, close to tears. "Ye didn't have to--" 

"What else would Ah name her? Little Anne, named after my dearest...aye, but we'll have to call you little Nan, Ah think." Yes, she was starting to feel it again, the crippling, cramping strain and the need to push. 

"Hold her to your breast, Mary, let her suckle, it'll help the bleeding." 

Mary did as she was told, worrying that her lack of a truly magnificent bosom like Anney's was going to hinder little Nan's ability to feed. But the infant latched on right away, and Mary sat in awe at this perfect, unbelievable moment, snatched from the roiling pains. 

Surely she would suffer for this joy. Nothing could be this _right,_ this ridiculously beautiful child made during a night of the most sublime passion, without some sort of retribution for the bastard son of William Kidd. She _was_ still James, she had always been James _and_ Mary, even before James had a name of his own. And James was just as awestruck by Nan and her tiny, perfect toes, because he had _also_ just ( _pain worse than any other man's_ ) borne a child, had made this tiny perfect creature out of lust and agony and desperation and love. James and Mary were just two faces of one person, neither or both man and woman, united in this adoration. 

Every tension she'd ever felt, every yearning and dissatisfaction, every time she'd nearly given up balancing on the razor's edge between a woman hidden in a man's life and a man misplaced in a woman's body, every interleaved layer of James hiding within Mary hiding within James, every secret behind a facade within a disguise, all of it dissolved into a moment clear as the Caribbean and true as the sun and full as a billowing sail. Every truthful lie compounded and dissipated, leaving behind just an adoring new parent staring at a tiny baby with endless hope. No matter how calculated the pregnancy, no matter what use or guilt she'd gotten out of it, James Kidd--Mary Read--was madly in love with the end result. 

Nan's little pink lips stopped moving, and her eyes were drifting closed. An almost clear trickle of milk ( _what a miracle it is_ , _I make_ _**food**_ _for my_ _**daughter,**_ _was any man ever so blessed?_ ) dribbled from the corner of her mouth, and Mary clasped her close, as the pain intensified. ( _Was any man ever so cursed?_ ) 

"I bet she's lovely." Anne's voice was wistful, sad. 

"She is--oh!" Surely this was not supposed to be worse than birthing the actual baby? "Ugh... Ah can't..." 

"Mary? Mary!" 

"Oh Jaysus, Anney, the pain, it's even worse. How can it be worse?" 

There was a rattling noise by her cell door, and guards stomped in. Rough hands yanked Nan from Mary's arms as she rolled on her side, unable to escape the agony. 

"Mary? How bad is it?" 

She groaned incoherently, curled up in a ball, barely keeping Nan's exquisite perfection in view. 

"Mary? Are they taking ye to the doctor? Mary? Is Nan unwell?" 

"They...they took her." 

"What?!" 

"Nan...they just took her away." 

Anne sounded truly frightened. "Mary...they...oh, Mary." 

If she said any more, Mary didn't hear her, the way the universe had collapsed around the tiny golden light that retreated farther, and farther, until Nan was just a spark to Mary's Sense. And then the guards took her daughter around a corner, and the spark winked out, and Mary slumped on the filthy floor, nothing left to her but the tearing agony. She was naught but a hole ripped in the world, the purest desolation. 

"HELP! HELP!" Anne was yelling, and the guards were making crude, cruel remarks. 

Something else had come out of her, it looked like a giant clot of blood and felt like a raw roast, and when she tried to pick it up, she realized it was connected to something between her legs. Tearing off her bloody skirt, she stared in horror at the wet, quivering _thing_ that was hanging out of her. "Anney...there's...it's...it fell out..." 

"Mary? What is it, Mary?" 

"It...it felt like it...snapped?" 

"Oh god, Mary, oh no, that's your _womb_ , it's fallen out, that's not supposed to happen. GUARDS! My friend, she just had a baby and, and she's not well! Please! She needs a doctor!" 

The laughter from the guards and the begging from Anne went on forever. Dimly, Mary reasoned that perhaps everything would be okay if she pushed it back in. So she tried, she tried holding it in place by putting back on her vile, tattered drawers, even though they were still drenched in the waters that had gushed out of her when her labor had started. She managed to pull them up and even tie them, but the pain knocked her back to the floor, and now she was surely hallucinating, because Edward was dragging her along. _I guess there is an afterlife,_ she reasoned, _and he went there first_. There was no way he could be alive, she'd seen him held prisoner by Templars at her own trial. He was no Assassin, but the Templars would have considered him a traitor. There was no way he could be alive and free, and the knowledge sapped what strength she had left. 

He was begging her to walk, but she wasn't in any hurry to get to whatever was in store for sexually deviant Assassins with a penchant for piracy. He shouldn't have been rushing either--that was near enough him as well, that they would most likely share the same fate after death. Edward was talking at her, but she couldn't focus and she couldn't walk. He picked her up and carried her, all the while talking as if he was still alive. _I'll be sorry to leave behind_ _Anney_ _, and Nan. Maybe_ _Anney_ _will find her and raise her, raise her to know about her two brave, strong, dead parents..._ "Don't die on my account," she mumbled, "Ah've done my part... will you?" She realized again that she was talking to Edward's ghost, not to Anne. He wanted to hustle her along, but she had all the time in the world, didn't she? "Ah'll be with ya, Kenway. Ah will." Even dying was exhausting, and she needed a break from it. She leaned against the wall, and remembered no more. 

But now she was awake, in Havana's bureau, in Rhona's own bed as a matter of fact, wrapped up and shivering. "Anney?" No answer. "Edward?" No, he was dead. Wasn't he? "Anney? Nan?" Her voice became a weak whine, and she bit back a sob. 

The door slammed open, and Rhona rushed in. "Mary? Do ye remember me?" 

"Rho...na." 

Rhona seized her in a huge bear hug that made her whimper. "Oh, sorry, sorry. Do you remember where you are? Or what happened to you?" 

"I'm...they took...my little...my little Nan..." 

"You almost died!" 

"Ah ...did. I thought...what..." A hand over her lower belly was astoundingly painful. 

"They...someone must have taken you in...done surgery. They saved your life." 

Mary frowned, trying to remember. Someone, someone glowing red, holding her nose, pouring alcohol down her throat? Being stuporous drunk but still feeling a knife in her abdomen? "They...cut?" And they took her away afterwards, bound in a ship's hold with two other unfortunate women, and the corpse of a third. Then strong men shoving them out of a warehouse door, laughing as they stumbled. "Others..." 

"They took things out, Mary. Your...you can't have any more children." 

"Don't want...never...but Kenway. Needed...didn't expect...love..." 

"Is he the father?" Rhona asked delicately. 

Mary nodded, frowning at Rhona's shocked face. "...Find her?" 

An elderly woman came in with cups of tea. "Mary! You're awake." She felt her forehead, checked her pulse. "Your fever's down." 

She tried to sit up. "Good. Find." 

A hand pushed her back down. "No, you have to lie down. We're looking for your child. Was it healthy?" 

She nodded, tears of frustration in her eyes as she began sipping the tea. "Stole her." 

"We'll find her. You need to heal." 

The familiar stabbing pain in her abdomen drew her attention, and she looked under the blankets. "Bleeding..." 

"You nearly died of fever, Mary Read, and you still might. Now _lie down_! This is worse than any wound you've ever taken. Women die all the time in childbirth or after. Don't be one of them!" 

Rhona said softly, "I'm sure Anne and Kenway want to see you alive. Not dead because you were a damn fool who made it to safety but wouldn't rest." 

She tried to correct Rhona, to tell her that Edward was dead, she had seen his ghost, and she wasn't sure she wasn't still hallucinating on the way to whatever hell they ought to share. But--damn, the tea was drugged, and now she was floating somewhere near the ceiling, all pain forgotten. She closed her eyes and smiled a little. Could he see their beautiful daughter, where he was? When she joined him, would she, too, see Nan? That might not be so bad, to be with Edward, to watch their lovely lass grow up strong and happy, with sweet Anney raising her. Truthfully, the pain was gone now, it must be a side effect of dying. 

When she woke again, Mary was fairly put out to be alive. She was so sure she'd actually died this time, sure she'd be joining Kenway. But there she was again, in Rhona's tiny bedroom, bleeding a little on her bed. And that was odd, too, Anne had told her that she'd bleed for weeks, and she'd been dreading that, but only the gash across her belly was bleeding, like any other wound. 

If it was a wound, now, that wasn't so bad. She'd been wounded a hundred times before, by swords and knives, bullets and arrows, fists and feet and teeth. She'd never felt this weak, but never this driven, neither. Everything she'd fought for, schemed for, everything she'd sought before in her life, paled before her singular quest. She wasn't Mary, and she wasn't James, she was just a human form fashioned out of the agony of absence. She sat up, eventually, and she talked, occasionally, but nothing mattered other than Nan. She ate because she had to get stronger to find her; she walked around, a little, to toughen herself up so she could train. She was weak from months of captivity, from skimming the surface of death. She would be strong, she would be tough, she would fight and she would kill and she would do whatever she had to, to find her daughter. She slept when she could not do otherwise, unsure whether she looked forward to gazing at Nan's face in her dreams, or dreaded nightmares of her being tortured, in pain, dying, starving, abandoned, unloved-- 

She knew not where they had taken her, nor how to get there, nor whom she might have to kill to get her back, nor--most days--who she herself was, or where, or why. Her life and her entire being had contracted to a single point, the memory of that golden spark surrounded by red.


	4. What Do You Do With Assassins' Children?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is moping, and grief, and Plans.

It was bliss. It was so quiet and peaceful every night, just the normal cacophony of birds and insects, monkeys and drunken pirates carousing on the beach. Edward could actually sleep, and Anne, too, for several hours at a time, until Jim's quiet gurgling woke them in the soft predawn light. Then he'd nurse until he was nearly asleep, and Edward would pat his narrow back until he hiccupped. Usually Jim had fallen asleep by the time he was changed and returned to his crate bed, sweet-smelling and fragile in the glowing morning mists. Edward was always afraid of handling the tiny boy too roughly, even though he'd filled out as Anne filled out, gaining tiny rolls of fat as his mother regained her impressively curved hips (how Mary's hands had lingered on Anne's hips, stroking them as she smiled up at Anne from between her thighs...)

It was true that they still felt empty and unbalanced without Mary, the linchpin of their hearts, and Edward for one felt utterly lost, knowing he'd never see that smug smirk or hear her pointed jibes at him. It seemed impossible that a world without Mary could exist, and it took him several days of staring at the sea to realize that he was still looking for a ship that had been wrecked at Nassau, and a captain who had died in his arms in Port Royal. He was even disappointed to see his own Jackdaw, bringing Ah Tabai back from Tulum with a number of Assassins.

"What's this, then?" he asked, dully. He'd been sitting on the beach in Mary's favorite spot at the bonfire, remembering late nights carousing. Inevitably, someone would drunkenly insist on James Kidd leading them in a hoarse round of song about his father. How many of those fellows were dead, now? The bonfire was little more than a campfire, the rowdy parties now dwindled to a few men who wanted to drink in peace and quiet. The island was now populated mostly by fellows that had made their fortunes, taken the King's pardon, and settled down with their favorite prostitute and a couple of children.

"This is your doing, Edward Kenway," Ah Tabai told him with a piercing glare.

"Look, mate, I'm grateful for you breaking me out, and beyond grateful for your help with Anne and little Jim, but--"

"No, I speak instead of how you have led Templars to Tulum."

"... Oh."

"Adéwalé generously offered us use of your ship and a home on Inagua, as the Templars have overtaken Tulum."

"Listen,...Mentor, I've a need to talk with you, when you're settled in."

"Indeed, Captain Kenway, we have much to discuss about your experiences." For some reason, Edward felt rather like he was being called to task by his mother, an occurrence all too frequent in his childhood.

"My experiences?"

"Yes, your encounter with the Sage obviously ended rather badly, yet may provide clues to the location of the Observatory."

"Oh. Right, right." He had entirely forgotten in the past months that the Assassins had been searching for the blasted thing. The familiar pain stabbed him again, the ache in his side and the agony in his heart, when he remembered Mary begging him to search with her and the other Assassins. "Listen, um, I actually went there, got the scars to prove it, too. That Roberts is a vicious creature with a queer aversion to kindness. After all my help, he turned on me."

The Mentor stopped in his tracks and pierced Edward with his stare. "I see. And you did not think to tell me this before?"

"Look, man, I've had other things on my mind. First prison, then everything with Jim, and--and Mary--" His breath caught unaccountably in his throat, and he shrugged helplessly as he tried to find his voice. "--and, and we don't know where they took her _daughter_ , how could they steal a little baby like that?"

To his surprise, Ah Tabai's severe expression softened. "Of course, it has been very difficult for the two of you in your grief. And young children can tax even the strongest man or woman.... " He trailed off, and Edward got the distinct sense that the old Assassin was lost in his own private grief.

"Aye, well, thanks to you, Jim's doing marvelous."

"No, Captain Kenway, it is thanks to your quick action that the child was saved." Ah Tabai gestured towards Edward's manor, and they began to walk.

"But if you hadn't rescued Anne, he'd certainly not have lived. Just like--I mean, who lets a woman bear a child in that filth? And the bad air? That can't be healthy. And I understand them starving me, but you don't starve a woman with child! It's not right." Edward was getting worked up, his voice rising and brow furrowing.

"And would you feel the same if the woman in question was not your lover, if the child was not yours?"

"Of course I would! What do you take me for?"

"Pirates are not known for their moral inclinations," the Assassin remarked equably. "Do you care about Mary's daughter because she is _your_ child, because she is _Mary's_ child, or because she is an innocent?"

"All of that, but who says she's my child??" Edward asked. "She could've picked any man, someone who did right--"

Ah Tabai sighed, and explained very slowly, "Mary wrote me a letter, when she knew herself pregnant. In it she was very definite that you were her child's father, and that no other man could be."

Edward shook his head. "But even if I weren't, I'd still want to find the girl. She's lost her mother to those rotten fellows, it weren't fair they stole her away too."

"She was also very insistent that, should it be necessary, you or the lady Anne were to raise the child. It is fortunate that the two of you remain together. But some of our Brotherhood question whether you are capable of caring for the child of one of our number. They see you as little more than a selfish pirate, an impostor posing as a traitor, and a killer of Assassins. In short, a target rather than an ally. Recall that there was a contract on your life at one time, that only Mary's defense of you negated. Some say that her desire for you painted your actions in a more favorable light than you deserve."

Edward scowled. "I didn't see none of them in Port Royal. Nor searching for Mary's child. I didn't save her because I couldn't. What's their excuses?"

Ah Tabai inclined his head. "I happen to agree with Mary. Your actions since her death have justified her faith in you." With that, Edward felt ashamed--he'd been moping on the beach when he could have been helping Anne, or searching for Mary's daughter. __His daughter,__ the strangest idea of all, that he--foolish, selfish Edward Kenway of all men--had a child with wise, amazing Mary Read. Would it look like him? Like Mary? Was it happy, hungry, sick? What if he never got to lay eyes on his child, the babe that--Jaysus, but that would make it his fault, that she died bearing the child he'd got on her--

"We've got to find that little girl," he murmured. How could Anne ever forgive him? He'd taken her true love from her, all unknowing.

"Indeed. Good evening, Lady Anne!" The Mentor laid it on a little thick, Edward thought, bowing to Anne and kissing the back of her hand as she met them in front of the manor.

"I'm no lady, sir, but I thank ye." She blushed a little, and curtsied as best as she could with Jim tied to her in a curious sort of sling. Seeing Edward's eyes on the brightly colored wrap, she told him, "One of the girls told me her mother used to do this back in Africa. See, I could even pilot a ship like this." She extended her arms to show him, demonstrating near-full range of motion while Jim gurgled contentedly.

"Would it be safe?" Edward asked, leaning in close so Jim could grab onto his finger. Like always, he marveled at the tiny digits grasping his callused index finger, and chuckled as Jim tried to mouth it.

"I'm not planning to strap my babe to me and go fighting, just I can do more like this, instead of staying at home like a good little woman." She glared up at Edward. "For one, I intend to look for little Nan along with ye. I'd not lose a minute of time with my Mary's only child waiting for ye to bring her to me."

Edward gestured both of them into his office in the manor, and cleared a space on the table for a map of the West Indies. "All right, what do we know?"

Anne pointed to Kingston and Port Royal on the map. "She was born here..."

Edward turned to Ah Tabai. "Where do they take the babes born in prison?"

The Assassin shook his head. "I've no idea. It took me months to trace Mary and Anne to Port Royal. I'd known Mary was sailing with Captain Rackham but it wasn't until Anto sent me word of her trial that I knew where they'd gone."

Anne chewed on a fingernail thoughtfully. "Do ye think they send them to the fathers? I mean, if the fathers are alive, and known...Mary wouldn't tell them, ye know."

Edward flushed. "Well, ah, maybe she hoped--"

"--aye, not to have them hurt ye any more than they already did, I think so."

That hadn't been what he'd been thinking. "Listen, the Observatory...I think it may help us."

Anne scoffed, but Ah Tabai leaned closer. "How so?"

"There's a curious machine in it, that lets one see through someone's eyes. Roberts used it to see Jack watching you talk to Mary, Anne."

Anne blushed. "Oh?"

"Aye, Mary was all for teaching you to fight, but then Jack was angry and jealous, and called her 'lad'. She said lad was the last thing he should be calling her."

"Aye, that morning she'd got sick from the babe and she complained to me how big her tits were getting," Anne reminisced.

"Wait, they got bigger?"

"Aye, Edward, all women's do, and she's got the body of a woman even if she's more comfortable playing the man." She eyed him, amused. "Ye'd have loved to play with 'em, they were so lovely and full and--" Remembering that Ah Tabai was in the room, she flushed again and trailed off. "In any case, we've got to find Nan, and ye think the Observatory can help?"

Edward cleared his throat. "Aye, it takes a bit of the blood of the person whose eyes you want to see through."

Ah Tabai frowned. "Then that gets us nowhere."

Anne blinked in surprise. "No, we've got--Edward, ye haven't washed them prison trousers, have ye?"

"No, they're still bloody--dried, yes, but bloody."

"Trousers?" the elderly Assassin asked.

"Aye, they've got my blood on them, and the guards I killed, and Mary's, and, and Anne, some of that blood should be Nan's, right?"

Anne nodded. "There's blood from the mother and from the babe, in the cord and the afterbirth. And nobody cut the cord proper for them, they tore Nan away from Mary." She blinked back tears and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

"So if we can get the blood from my trousers into a vial...it's dried, though, will that work?"

Anne shrugged. "It may work, and I've no wish to go to Port Royal to follow leads from there. Can ye help us with that, Mentor?"

Ah Tabai inclined his head. "Yes. But, once you have the blood, then what?"

"It's this crystal skull...it's probably in Bart Roberts's possession right now, or if it's not, it's back in the Observatory and we've got to use his blood to get into the Observatory..." Edward tapped the map in the vague area of where he suspected he'd been.

"So we've got to find him. And, Edward, ye'd better start trying to wring the blood out of your breeches. And I'll need weapons. Some pistols, and a cutlass, like, for when we find whoever took our Nan." She straightened, eyes blazing. "And someone to care for Jim, keep him safe, because I intend to fight."

Ever since the guards had carried Nan away, ever since Edward had climbed into the boat with his eyes empty as his hands and his heart, Anne Bonny knew that the only thing she could do was, in Mary's memory, to find her child and raise her as lovingly as her own. When she wanted nothing more than to lie in bed and stare at the bottom of the Jackdaw's deck, or the ceiling in the manor at Inagua, only Jim's fussing brought her back to herself. Only he could remind her to eat, to regain her strength for the day she'd find Nan, the day she'd hold all that remained of the woman she'd loved far beyond any man. At least Edward understood that, knew that Mary had been the love of her life, accepted that he had his place in her life but did not own her heart.

Anne's stomach twisted with guilt. He did deserve far more of a woman than she or Mary had ever been ready to give him, so bound together by their love, which long months in the darkness of prison had only intensified. And now, her heart seemed only half its size, only a quarter of its strength, torn asunder the moment Edward had shaken his head with that haunted look and she had let loose with a wail of agony that Ah Tabai had probably assumed came from the pain of labor.

It had been _her_ idea, and therefore _her_ fault. All her fault that Mary was dead. Anne had been foolish, wanting to follow Jack Rackham to sea, wanting Mary to teach her to sail and fight, wanting everything life and love could possibly offer. Mary was less enthusiastic about joining up with Calico Jack--she wanted her Anney to be with her, true, but would have rather gone to sea on her own ship, had it not been destroyed, or at the very least the Jackdaw, which had a competent captain. But Edward had still been obsessed with his damn Observatory, so Mary reluctantly agreed to join Jack's crew.

"He's sailin' straight for a long fall and a short string," she'd said to Anne, the night before they were to leave.

Anne privately agreed. "Don't be silly, Mary."

"Ah don't want ta see ya join 'im on the gallows, my sweet. Nor me."

"My Da was a solicitor, you know. I listened a lot when I was small. And...I learned...there is a way...even if we get captured."

Mary tilted her head. "A way for what?"

"To avoid the noose."

"Go on."

"Just for women, though. If yer up the duff, they won't hang ye. Like in the Beggar's Opera--"

Mary's face twisted in distaste. "A trick, then? Bringin' a child into the world just to save your skin?"

"Insurance, like. Gives ye a chance to get pardoned, to escape even."

"Ya know yer husband can't use it."

"But _you_ can. Please, Mary. I can't _bear_ the thought that..."

"All right, all right! Ah'll do my level best, but Ah can't promise it'll take. Ah ain't never been... And Ah ain't goin' ta try again if this don't work." She made a face. "Ah can't...well...if it--Kenway's being an arse about his damn Observatory, ya know." She was unaccountably blustery, tongue-tied, defensive.

Anne grinned knowingly. "Ye could always find another fella..." She chuckled as Mary made a face and shook her head vigorously. "Come on, Jack's not that bad..."

Mary laughed. "Keep him for yer own self, then, Anney my sweet." She kissed Anne tenderly, and slipped out into the night, returning, tired and mussed, just before dawn. "Four times, made him finish in me, an' Ah made him call me Mary." She quirked a smile. "Just in case my head needs to think Ah'm a woman, too."

Anne smiled, and spun Mary around. "Now we just wait to find out."

Edward Kenway was reeling from his night of exertion in Mary's arms, so it took him much longer the next day to resupply the Jackdaw and find his crew than he'd expected. In fact, the sun was only an hour away from setting, and the tides were against them, _and_ a storm was massing on the horizon, by the time he'd assembled most of his men. Three had completely vanished, one had dysentery, and one was snoring in a pile of leaves right outside the tavern, sleeping off the alcohol he'd consumed after having a tooth pulled.

So Edward was more than a little grumpy as he sat in the tavern, impatient to leave but also reluctant--Mary had been _so_ angry about the whole Roberts thing. Perhaps he should rethink it, after all.

"Morning, Edward. You see my wife anywhere?" Calico Jack was bobbing and weaving while still sitting, an impressive trick.

"It's evening, and no," he answered, coolly. How could Mary and Anne even _think_ of sailing with this fool?

"Oh. Well, that makes sense. Guess I'll go find Kidd and ask him." Jack seemed perfectly unperturbed that he had to ask his wife's other lovers where she might be. He attempted to stand, and promptly collapsed on the table. Edward tipped the table, and Jack flopped onto the floor, snoring.

"Edward, have ye seen--well, _we're_ not setting out today, are we?" Anne eyed her husband with practiced exasperation.

"My crew's no better," Edward complained. "Three sheets to the wind, and we've not even set sail yet."

Anne met his eyes with a smoldering smirk, a look only she could pull off. "Ye've said your farewells to Kidd, but ye haven't bid me a proper goodbye," she pretended to pout.

Edward blinked, and suddenly she was in his lap, and his trousers were unbearably tight. He felt they'd surely burst at the seams as Anne ran her fingertips through the stray strands of ragged blond hair that always escaped his hair tie. "I can, if you like. I didn't know you--mm, were waiting..."

"Oy, Edward, and I even call ye by your Christian name!" She tapped his nose, chiding half-seriously. "Ye'd never leave without bending over for James Kidd, but do ye spare a thought for her that brings you yer rum an' all?"

"Anney," he gasped, "I can't think now at all."

She smiled. "I've the cure for that. Now where did I leave it? We'd better check your cabin."

Mary had broken in to the cabin and was waiting impatiently for the two of them, although Anne insisted on having Edward first (it was only fair, what with how Mary'd had him all to herself the night before). If he noticed their worry, he said nothing about it, neither while they steamed up his cabin, nor afterwards, when they all snuggled in an uneasy slumber, full of dread and--in Mary's case--gnawing guilt at using him so.

Before dawn, they said their goodbyes to him, slipping back to their new ship, hand in hand and hearts in throats. They tripped over Jack on the beach, and had to hoist his unconscious body onto his own ship. Mary counted most of the crew mostly awake and not too far from sober, so she took the wheel and began to bellow orders, while Anne lugged her sodden husband belowdecks. If only they'd taken that as a sign to clear out, Anne wouldn't have the guilt of knowing she'd like as caused the death of the most wondrous man or woman she'd ever known, the true love she'd assumed would never find one such as her.

They could have raised their own ship, gone to ground when Mary increased (and Anne, too, if she'd actually fallen pregnant from that night with Edward, and not later, on the ship, with Jack), and Mary could have borne her babe free and healthy at Inagua or Tulum. Edward would have been there, because not even advanced pregnancy would have stopped Mary rescuing him from prison. And even if she'd died nevertheless, she'd have died in Anne's gentle caress, and known with her final breath that her daughter was safe and loved. And Anne's final memory of her beloved would not be of a quick glimpse over her shoulder at the grimy, gaunt, gory figure in Edward's emaciated arms.

Finding and rearing Nan was Anne's hope and penance both, for Mary-and-James, Anne's sweetest of sweethearts, the love of her life lost forever. And when Nan grew into Mary's stature, or James's face, or Mary's voice, or some other reminder of her long-dead mother, it would be Anne's most agonizing joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a long time and a lot of rewriting to make this chapter not suck quite so hard. I'm still not entirely happy with it, (THANKS EVERNOTE FOR EATING SOME GOOD STUFF) but it's time to move on and post it...


	5. See You In Sanity

Edward was back, back in Port Royal, shackled and gibbeted by turns, dragged out to a trial for some good old-fashioned threats. "This will be your fate if you fail to cooperate."

"We're pregnant!" Mary was defiant and buoyant, beautiful under the grime and bruises.

"Pregnant?!" Edward was shocked (though why, didn't he already know she'd bear a girl?) but realized that Rogers and Torres thought he was mocking them. Good idea, that. "Don't you Templars know where children even come from?"

(Had she really given him that meaningful glance?)

(Why was he doubting these things as they happened?)

Rogers pressed the gun harder between Edward's shoulder blades. "Listen, you child-buggering lout of a sodomite..."

Edward laughed, clear as an alarm bell ringing. "James Kidd is no child, but I'll not deny a word otherwise." Though they'd the wrong end of it, of course, but maybe they'd think he did. But who could say the end was wrong if the means were so delightful?

And then, as he knew, he was back in the gibbet, surrounded by bored guards. They laughed, they called him all sorts of disgusting names making him out to be the vilest wretch that ever lived. And he laughed back at them, claiming the truth that was lies that were truth, because Mary was James was Mary was James.

Yet inside he called himself viler names still, for it was his fault, he had let Mary down by his greed. He'd not been free to break her out, he'd not been sensible enough for her to sail with him, he should have saved her as she tried to save him from himself. Every day in the sun he crawled across the sand of his heart, Mary berating him, Mary and Anne and Caroline all hanging behind a cackling Bart Roberts, milling Assassins falling to his blades no matter how hard he tried to spare them.

"You left me when I needed you most!" he yelled at Caroline.

Mary answered, "Ya left us all! So in love wi' money ya don't care nothin' for people!"

Roberts laughed at this and toasted Edward with his cup of tea from his seat on Stede Bonnet's back. "Can't trust anyone these days!" He drained his cup and threw it into thin air.

"You're so blind, you couldn't see what you had," Caroline chided.

"Ye won't look in a mirror and see what we all had," Anne added, holding her son.

"Full sail!" Edward cried, trying to cover his ears.

"You're drunker on sunshine than ever you were on rum," Mary pointed out.

"You're drunker on rum than ever you were on love," added Caroline.

"And you're drunker on love than ever Jack was on anything." Anne stood between Mary and Caroline, crying bloody tears. The other two hung from nooses, eyes as bright and alive as Anne's were dead, both covered with blood.

"You're drunker on fear than you were on sunshine," commented Roberts.

"Ya so drunk, ya don't even know who ya killin'," Mary croaked as Edward stumbled through the prison towards her.

"James, stay alive! Ah Tabai'll be here soon, just hold out--"

(How did he know that?)

"Just hold out!"

Anne's day was going so wrong in so many ways, and the sun wasn't even up yet. She had had a screaming fight with Edward in the middle of the night over who had last cleaned up little Jim, who of course had proceeded to fuss, to the point that Anne just bundled him up and took him for a walk around the deck of the Jackdaw, hoping the sea air would soothe him. It was working until the unearthly howls started up from the captain's cabin. Adewale, at the wheel, beckoned Anne over, though she was already rushing to the door.

She found Edward thrashing in the bed, tears streaming down his face, screaming, "Let me go back!"

"Edward! Edward!" she tried to sound forceful. He'd had these spells twice since they'd come back from Port Royal, but who was she to complain when she'd had spells of her own?

"I want to go back, Anne, I want to go back to where Mary's alive!"

She seized his hands and held them. "Where were ye?"

He clung to her fingers. "Back in that gibbet. They were laughing at me, and then I dreamed--it was a dream I had back then. You was in it, Caroline, Mary, all of you, but she was still alive."

She crushed his hands so tightly they went white, and her voice cracked. "Edward. She's--she's gone." Tears streamed down her own cheeks. "It's just us, now, and Jim, and we're to find Nan."

"I _know_ , Anney, but it was so real. She was still alive. And I want to be back there, she's alive and I can't reach her, but she died in my arms and that was so much worse."

A tear dripped on Jim, who was rather squashed in between them, and he reached up to grasp at Edward's hair. He tugged until some of the weak blond strands came off in his grasp, and he waved them around. Anne, unable to speak, just held Edward until his sobs quieted and they could see the sun rising over the water.

"Forgive me, Anne, I--"

"Shh, shh, Edward, I've my own share of nightmares."

"The worst is when she's still alive."

"Aye, and then ye wake up and she dies all over again for ye."

"We've got to find that little girl, Anne. That's the only way we'll ever know peace."

* * *

The search for both Roberts and Nan was painfully slow; the Jackdaw sailed from island to island as they tried to find clues. Everywhere there was a pigeon coop used by Assassins, Edward checked for the coded messages from Kingston. Antó, the bureau leader, had found that the children born to women in the prison were sent away to another island, but had not yet succeeded in tracing them.

Anne spent much time in the taverns on every island, getting information from barmaids she knew and drunken men she didn't. Besides, it kept Edward out of the taverns, which no doubt helped their search immensely.

Their next stop was Nassau, slipping in under the eyes of Woodes Rogers and his cronies (including Anne's most worthless former husband, James Bonny) who had thoroughly overrun the island in the past year. Within a day, Anne was well and truly sick of being the local celebrity at the Old Avery. Yes, she'd been a barmaid there, and yes, she'd gone on to become a ferocious pirate wanted throughout the Americas. And yes, she'd escaped the English through a combination of luck and feminine trickery. 

But right now, she wanted information about Bart Roberts, or the whereabouts of children born in Port Royal prison. She didn't want to repeat for the umpteenth time the story of how she and Mary had tried to hold Rackham's little ship against attack, nor how she had escaped hanging by being pregnant. It was getting tiresome, and the all-too-familiar tavern wasn't helping. Here she had met Mary; there Jack had made advances on her for the first time; under that table she'd found a prostitute earning her pay from Edward. Despondent, Anne bought a mug of ale and slouched at a table. Nothing was the same as it had been. Everything was grayer, dimmer, duller. She was of a mind to give up for the night and go back to her son. Little Jim might not have much to say, but his company at least made her a little less glum. 

She hunched over her drink as she heard steps approaching. Not another one! Probably another man offering to "help" in case she should run afoul of the law again. Some nights she might have accepted, but tonight was most certainly not one of them. She turned in her chair to yell at the intruder-- 

\--and stared into a grinning crystal skull, and behind it, the devilish smile and odd eyes of Roberts himself. Anne tried to stand, to back away, but she was as if hypnotized, and could do nothing but stare. Dimly, she heard Roberts's pompous speechifying. "Ah, so I have caught the lovely Anne Bonny. So famous. And yet, so _merely human_. Do you know what this toy can do to _mere_ _humans?_ " 

She had an idea, but could not voice it. She felt like a butterfly in a collection, pinned in place as ornamentation. Roberts continued, "I can use it to _communicate_ to you. And what then shall I communicate? Why not...insanity? Well do I know insanity! But you do, too, don't you? You know the insanity of imprisonment, not as well as I do, but enough." He stroked her cheek gently, horribly. The world fogged around the two of them, and he gestured. "What do you see, Missus Bonny?" 

It was Jack, half decapitated by the noose around his neck. Anne bit back a shriek, and tried to hold back from vomiting as Jack began to speak. "Oh Anney," he crooned. "I've been waiting for you to join us, Anney." 

Next to him, face and tongue grotesquely swollen and purplish, swung Vane. "An' le'ss dring to... a... lasthing peathe..." he tried to sing. 

"Oi, quiet there!" yelled Jack, his words whistling past where his neck had split open. "I'm sick of your stupid singing!" 

"Whathre gonna do... maroon me from... your gallowth?" croaked Vane. 

"She's not going to join us if you two can't stop arguing," complained Hornigold, hanging behind them. There was a good deal of agreement from at least a hundred other pirates Anne had known, all hanging around her. 

"Look what's become of all your friends," Roberts whispered from behind her. Anne bit her lip, distraught, as Roberts pointed out two figures propped up by each other in a pool of blood. "And see here, the fate of Kenway's _other_ women." She cried out as she recognized Mary, as limp as a rag doll. The other woman, with the red hair and the fine dress ( _so much blood_ ) and the unseeing eyes, that had to be Caroline. "I think they need company, don't you? Pretty, young company. What am I saying? You don't actually _think_. You're an _animal_. And _I_ think it would be _so_ much more satisfying to drive you mad, like the animal you are." 

Jack laughed, a ghastly noise. "I shpent my whole life not thinking!" Anne could have sworn she saw Mary's twinkling eyes wink at her, and she almost thought she heard the other woman's typical complaint about Jack. _Not with the head on his shoulders..._

Vane rolled his bloodshot eyes. "Anth we're all tho muth imfproveth by it." 

Anne had slumped to the ground, clutching her head. Roberts crouched next to her. "Don't worry. It's not actually your fault that you can't resist me. For I am of a race known as gods to your kind. In my time, I was called the god of money and death." 

_What a pompous arse_ , Mary would have said. 

Anne's ears buzzed, and her whole body seemed to be bursting with tiny, invisible spots of flame as Roberts continued, "Only if you had our blood in your veins could you fight back. But you don't. No man born without the Sight could possibly oppose me. So why try? Just accept it." 

She stood in front of Jack, who held out a pistol with an encouraging smile. "You know what to do, lovely," he sing-songed. Anne took the gun with shaking hands, looked down the muzzle, and squeezed the trigger. 

And then, between the time the bullet left the chamber, and the time it would have blown away her skull, something collided with her, knocked her to the ground, left her breathless, with a warm, lovely body over her. Mary leaned down to nibble her ear, and whispered, "He didn't say nothing about women, only men." Still bloody, still gaunt, but smirking. 

Roberts drew a flintlock, pointing it at Mary's head. "Back off, you. I should never have let you in here." 

Mary gave him a sardonic, lopsided smile, and stood up slowly, leaving something in Anney's arms. It was baby Jim, cooing contentedly. "Aye, Ah'm doubly out of place here. But ya just couldn't resist torturin' Anney wi' me, could you? Then again, ya couldn't exactly put Edward in here either. She knows he ain't dead, not like these other fellers. But they're not actually them, are they?" Mary sauntered over to Vane, seized hold of his ratty beard, and ripped his face off, revealing Anne's face beneath. Hornigold, too, had Anne's face. 

"Stop it! Stop it right now!" Roberts fumed. 

As Anne clung to Jim, the other woman--Caroline--stirred jerkily, hands on her abdomen. "We keep a little bit of everyone we bear," she rasped. 

Mary smiled lovingly at Anne. "It's a woman thing. Oh, not that women are fit just for having children. But when we do, when we bear them, some little bit of them stays behind." Jim gurgled in Anne's arms. "Not in our wombs, but throughout our bodies. Including..." Mary touched Anne's forehead, and her head lit up with searing pain. "You've always had the wit to oppose him, and now you've the means to do so." 

"He shouldn't have brought us together," grated Caroline. 

" _Hubris_ ," said Anne, wondering. "A man with the pride of a god." 

Mary nodded, and gestured to Jack. "You know what to do." 

Anne walked over to her husband, and laid a hand on his cheek. "I'm sorry, Jack. Sorry I couldn't protect you, save you." 

He raised his hand, jerkily, and laid it over hers. His voice was toneless, creaky. "I know you tried. It was me own damn fault." His fingers entwined with hers. "You were always the brains and the balls of this whole thing. All I could do was my little part." He kissed her hand, murmured, "I love ya, Anney. Take care of my little boy, yeah? I don't think he's anywhere good. And when ya see Mary, thank her for me, for helping you. There's nothing left for me, so don't even think on it." He returned her hand to his cheek, and closed his bloodshot eyes. 

Anne took a deep breath, seized the skin of his face, and pulled, tears streaming down her face. But instead of revealing her own features, she was blinded by a flash of light, and then she was on the deck of Jack's ship with Mary and Caroline beside her, although Caroline was still sprawled in a puddle of blood. 

"So here we are again," said Mary. "How do things play out this time? Remember, this is _your_ mind." 

Anne shifted Jim to her hip, and stood on the railing, then jumped into the attacking ship. "We take the fight _to_ him." 

Mary grinned at Anne as the ship faded around her, and she was back in the tavern, Roberts gaping at her. "No... no, you can't have." 

She wrestled the Skull out of his hands, and tucked it under her arm, then kicked sharply between his legs, and left the tavern. She heard Roberts screaming at her, something about animals, and she ran. 

Or she tried to, but the air was thick, like honey, or clotted blood. Or time was slow, or time was quick but she was slow. She said something, she didn't know what, and then she felt wiry arms holding her up. 

Her old friend from the tavern, Sarah, was holding her, frowning. Sarah said something but Anne couldn't understand. The blonde woman tried to take the skull from her, and Anne shook her head. "It'll drive you mad," she tried to say--it was driving _her_ mad. "Jackdaw," she added, hoping she'd be understood. Her head throbbed, and she dimly realized that she had stopped being able to move her feet, that Sarah was practically dragging her. And then and then before her world shattered crosswise to the suffering and loss that almost broke her before the world twisted into half hitch snell _hangman's_ knots there were hands on the skull and weight lifted from her flying free forever forever...


End file.
